Muslims and Shakti (the Goddess)

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Muslims and Shakti (the Goddess)

 

In the interaction between Muslim, Hindu, and Christian traditions in

South India, there was a borrowing of symbols and ideas, a frequently

shared vocabulary, and an interweaving of motifs within a common

sacred landscape. At the center of this interaction is the imagery

associated with the ammans or goddesses of the region.

The most important figures within the religious landscape to all

South Indians are " divinities of blood and power. " In the Hindu

tradition these are warrior goddesses (locally known as ammans) and

warrior gods, both of whom are representations of " activated divine

power. " In the Muslim tradition, this power is represented by the

Sufi warrior pîr, who is perceived in virtually the same terms as

the blood-taking goddesses. Known under various names, such as Kali

or Kaliamma, Durga or Mariamma, these goddesses have " an extra

endowment " of Shakti, the female energy of the gods, and are

associated with Siva.

 

The figure of the Muslim warrior pir, saint martyr, or shahîd was

easily accepted into this tradition, associated as he was with the

world of the forest, which in Hinduism is the world of Siva. The

martial pir was not a divisive being in South Indian society. On the

contrary, he was a figure of universal power with deep roots in the

world of the Tamil goddess cults and power divinities. The dargâhs

or shrines of Sufi saints were thus revered by both Hindus and

Muslims. Tota Kuramma was a Muslim woman who after her death became

an amman. (Wilber T. Elmore, Dravidian Gods in Modern Hinduism.

University of Nebraska, 1915, p. 61-63)

 

The result is that Muslim and Hindu conceptions of sacred power are

virtually identical. In the case of the warrior goddess, her power is

Shakti, " the dynamic, awesome, and sacred power which is the goddess

Durga-Kali. " The power of the pir, on the other hand, is his barakat.

The merging of these two concepts in South India is demonstrated, for

example, in the biography of a Tamil pir, where the word used to

describe his power is not barakat but Shakti. (See Susan Bayly,

Saints, Goddesses, and Kings: Muslims and Christians in South Indian

Society, 1700-1900. Cambridge University Press, 1989).

 

 

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There have been Muslims who, from within their awareness of the

Divine Feminine Shakti within Islam, have found in their hearts a

response to Her manifestations in India.

 

The land of Bengal, where the population is descended from Dravidian

ancestral stock (although they now speak an Indo-Aryan language), is

a meeting place of Islam, Shaktism, and Tantrism. Muslim Bengali

literature thus venerated the sacred women of Islam as manifestations

of Shakti. Prophet Muhammad's daughter Fatimah assumed the popular

robe of the mother in Bengal, where the cult of the Mother Goddess

Shakti dominated religious life. Hayat Mahmud, at the beginning of

his Jang Nama, asked to take the feet of Fatimah on his head. Saiyid

Murtaza addressed Fatimah as " the mother of the world " . Pagla Kanai,

a Bengali Muslim poet in the nineteenth century, identified Fatimah

as " Mother Tara " or " Mother Tarini " and prayed to her in this passage

that blends Islam and Shaktism:

 

O mother, Pagla Kanai, who is of no consequence

cries for you with every breath;

please cast a little shadow of your feet on me;

O Mother, take me to your feet.

O Mother Tara, the redeemer of the world,

O Mother Tarini, you shall appear as the savior of Muslims

when Israfil will blow his horn,

when everything will be reduced to water,

and when your father's community will sink into water without a boat.

Tara is a Tantric Shakti goddess (mahavidya), one of the best-loved

manifestations of Shakti for Tantric practitioners, and as such she

has appealed to the hearts of Bengali Muslims as much as the

Prophet's beloved daughter Fatimah.

 

Pagla Kanai also compared Fatimah to the goddess Kali and considered

her more virtuous:

 

Mother Kali is virtuous indeed—she stood on her husband's chest!

Did my gracious mother (Fatimah) ever trample `Ali?

(Quoted in The Islamic Syncretic Tradition in Bengal by Asim Roy, p.

94-95.)

 

Centuries ago, a Bengali Muslim named Saiyad Jafar was one among

several Muslims who composed odes to Kali. Here is an example:

 

Why do you in such a plight call yourself merciful?

(This is the Mother, the merciful, and in such a plight!)

What wealth can you give me? You yourself have not even clothes.

Would a woman choose nakedness if she had anything with which to

clothe herself?

Your husband is a beggar from his birth, your father is most cruel,

There is not in the family of either

any to be a benefactor.

For Saiyad Jafar what wealth is there in your keeping?

Hara's [shiva's] breast possesses your twin Feet.

 

(quoted in Kali, the Feminine Force by Ajit Mookerjee, p. 104)

 

A modern Bengali poet, Kazi Nazrul Islam (1899-1976), followed the

example of earlier poets like Saiyad Jafar in this ode to Kali, using

a play on words since in Bengali kali means 'ink':

 

Oh mother of mine,

There's ink on my hands,

ink on my face.

The neighbors laugh.

My education amounts to nothing —

I see " ShyaMa " in the letter M

And Kali in the letter K,

I dance and clap my hands.

Only my tears multiply

when my eyes light

on the rows of black marks

in multiplication tables.

I couldn't care less for

the alphabet's shades of sound

since your dark, lovely shade

isn't among them.

But Mother, I can read

all that you write

on leaves in the forest,

on the waters of the sea,

and in the ledger of the sky.

Let them call me illiterate.

Many regard him as the greatest poetic force in Bengali literature

after the world-famous Rabindranath Tagore. Both Nazrul Islam's poems

and prose writing are exuberant with a certain force and energy,

denouncing all social and religious bigotry and oppression.

 

Ayeshah Haleem wrote a study of the Lalitasahasranamam (The Thousand

Names of the Goddess Lalita), published in the anthology In All Her

Names: Explorations of the Feminine in Divinity, edited by Joseph

Campbell and Charles Musès (HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), p. 165-168.

An excerpt from her study:

 

Srîmâtâ!—Glorious Mother!

Srîmahârâjnî!—Glorious Queen!

Srimatsimhâsaneswarî!—Glorious ruler on the Lioness Throne!

 

Thus begins, with her first three names, the uplifted Sanskrit hymn

Lalitâsahasranâmam (The Thousand Names of the Goddess) in

praise of the Goddess of our Universe, with forms of address

describing her prime triplicity as Container, Measurer, and Matter of

the Universe (all implied by the word Mâtâ; Queen of the

Universe thereby, and Regulator of Time, the Devouring Lioness—and

therefore of all cycles that eventually return to their starting

point, making a whole.

 

Although her triple quality is all-encompassing, she is Manifestation

itself (Mâyâ)—the Veil of Existence—in all its variety

and detail, and thus she may be found through countless avenues. It

is something of this multiplicity that the Thousand Names of

Lalitâ seeks to convey, though the " thousand, " in turn, stand for

the thousands upon thousands of epithets that actually exist. The

text now available, although a compilation of recent date, is without

doubt derived from prototypes reaching back several millennia before

Christ and eventually to Paleolithic times.

 

 

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